WAKARUSA Rochelle "Chelli" Schmitt says she felt as if she was going to faint when she won the Elkhart County Spelling Bee last week. "I was really excited," the NorthWood Middle School eighth-grader said. "I didn't know if it was really happening to me or if it was one of my many spelling bee dreams." But unlike her roughly 40 opponents, Chelli couldn't actually see the words she studied for the spelling bee last week because she's been blind since birth. "I just read them in Braille and try to spell them," Chelli said of her studying process. Chelli suffers from Leber's Congenital Amaurosis, a rare visual deficiency that causes total or nearly total blindness. Doctors have told Chelli's parents, Janaye and Andrew Schmitt, that they both carry a gene that may have caused the disorder, but Chelli's two older sisters, Ashley, 17, and Katelyn, 16, are not blind. "It really doesn't matter what it is," Janaye Schmitt said of the cause of Chelli's disorder. "We just know that she's blind and it can't be fixed, so we deal with it. To us, it really doesn't matter." But Chelli is still a typical 13-year-old. "She takes studying very seriously," Janaye said of her daughter. "She always tries to do her very best. She also loves to sing." And the only difference between Chelli's spelling bee book compared to the standard book is that it takes several books printed in Braille to equal one standard book. Janaye said that if it weren't for donations and help from the community and local organizations, Chelli would never have been able to have the materials or resources necessary to participate in the bee. After her opponent misspelled "Machiavellian" last Tuesday, Chelli correctly spelled that word and went on to win the bee with the word "exchequer", which means treasury. Now she will advance to the regional spelling bee in Fort Wayne next month, and if she wins that she will continue on to the national competition. Chelli, who just finished reading the book, "Memoirs of a Geisha," says she's always loved words and loves to read. "Basically, my whole entire life I've always liked linguistics and words, and I'm taking Spanish in high school," she said, adding that when she's curious about a word, she'll usually just look it up. And now that the regional bee is right around the corner, Chelli is spending the majority of her time focusing on her spelling bee words. "I try to study from the time I finish my homework until about 10 p.m.," she said. But she admits that sometimes she gets frustrated when she studies at home because her mom doesn't always pronounce the words correctly.And spelling "Machiavellian" as recently as a year ago for this champion was out of the question, she says. "I didn't study very much a year ago," she said. "I studied, but it couldn't compare." Sharon Plank, a paraprofessional at NorthWood Middle School who works closely with Chelli every day at school, agrees. "I have seen her come a long way," Plank said. "She always has loved words ever since I met her. She has a Braille Scrabble board; we play that every once in a while." The two also worked on the words every other day when Chelli had study hall and they even studied together over Christmas break. As for pursuing a career in linguistics, Chelli says she's still deciding. "I wanted to be a medical transcriber," she said, "but I'm not sure yet. I'm still trying to decide." But for now, Chelli's mind is only focused on regionals. "I'm just really excited I won county and I hope I win regionals," she said. "I wish everyone else the best of luck."Staff writer Yonika Willis: ywillis@sbtinfo.com (574) 235-6556